CALLED OUT OF CAPTIVITY TO LIFE - by WORDS, BOOKS, AND POETRY
In his TEDx talk “Trauma to Transformation” he recites the poem he wrote from jail at age sixteen. It begins with “The calling came to me while I languished in my “room.” It tells of the impact of this “call” on him with the words “It brought me to life out of captivity.” His talk ends with a summary of five steps that anyone can follow in seeking their own escape from captivity.
In “Luis Rodriguez and the Gift of Words” he takes viewers on a walk through two institutions that were crucial to his – and potentially to others’ – journey of liberation: a library, the Central Los Angeles Public Library, and “Tia Chucha’s “ – the Bookstore and Cultural Center he founded as a welcoming place for young people, the kind of place he himself did not have, as a youth caught by the street.
Why this tour, why this video? Luis Rodriguez knows and shares the powers that called him to life: “Words saved my life, books saved my life, poetry… saved my life.”